One might think about using GIS in three powerful ways. First, running GIS software on a local computer with local data dominated much of the first 30 years of GIS through the late 1990s. While some of the “local” data and even software may have been running on a server, the server and data was by and large connected with the user’s own organization. This model continues to meet much of the needs of the day-to-day work that many educational and other organizations use today.
Second, beginning in the late 1990s with the Geography Network (http://www.geographynetwork.com), the National Atlas (http://nationalatlas.gov), and other services, some spatial analysis could be done online with nothing but a web browser. These tools have greatly expanded since then, offering the educator and the general GIS user a plethora of tools and layers including everything from agriculture to zebra mussels. We highlight some of the best on the ESRI EdCommunity’s web mapping resource list (http://edcommunity.esri.com/software/webmapping/) and on ArcLessons (http://edcommunity.esri.com/arclessons/lesson.cfm?id=305).
The third method in which GIS can be used combines the first and second method by using desktop GIS software together with live data services, or “feeds” from GIS servers.
Using ArcGIS desktop with ArcGIS Online is one example of this third method. The latest addition to ArcGIS Online is NASA JPL’s daily image, which provides the most current, near-global image available for the planet. The satellite image is a mosaic continuously updated from the global MODIS TERRA satellite (http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov). This data, served by the OnEarth server (http://onearth.jpl.nasa.gov), updates as soon as scenes are available (6-24 hours old), with a resolution of 250 meters per pixel in the swath’s center. A US weather satellite imagery layer is also available on ArcGIS Online that updates every 15 minutes.
I added cities and countries from my local computer to the satellite image so that I could ask students the effect of the Andes on weather, and to predict and analyze local weather via on-the-ground webcams in specific cities.
Try these new services in your classroom!
– Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager
